sacred life

April 30, 2011

Just because my trusty iMac has been zipping a long with no problems for 7 years doesn't mean it won't need to be retired at some point. Planning for a computer to be replaced is a better way to go than one morning during week 17 starting the day saying: "oh crap, I think my hard drive is dead".

I hit moments of doubt about my work. This week I realised that I have started to recognise that doubt moment just as it makes its way around the corner behind me, casting it's long dark shadow under my feet. Now I have to practice turning around quickly, and facing it down. Giving it the stink eye.

This past week, I was at Gypsy Girls Guide talking about my favourite time of day and at Scoutie Girl talking with some people about jumping (in a good way).

I've been thinking a lot about focus and how and when and why I lose mine. I started making a list of the things that I notice I lose my focus around. Wow, that's all I'm gonna say. Wow.

I saw Heirloom Tomoatoes at the Farmer's Market. Oh summer, can you be far behind?

First workshop is happening this weekend at the newly opened Teahouse Studio. Talk about making something happen, those girls know how to ride with a dream.

April 06, 2011

Do you ever ask yourself that same question? Do you ever find that you are waiting for your moment, though you might not know exactly what it will look like or feel like, nevertheless you hope it’s on the way, and so you wait for it? And wait some more? Do you find yourself waiting for approval from a teacher or mentor, or from your peers, waiting for the nod that says NOW, you’re ready?

March 23, 2011

As small business owners, creatives, and entrepreneurs we are all on our own road to somewhere.

For most of us there is no map, no mapquest directions to be downloaded, no Michelin guide to help us find our way. So, what do we do? We create most of it as we go. I like to think of it as creating for the journey, and since creating is fun and gets us to unexpected and sometimes miraculous destinations, and a road map that you have to fold up neatly to get it back in the glove box isn’t, I’m going with the fun map. . .

March 18, 2011

Our cat had never been outside until she came to live with us, she is now an indoor/outdoor cat. She, like many cats, hates the rain. Today she tried to go out, and a raindrop splatted in her face. Her response? Hiss at the raindrop and run back inside. I am right with her on this.

The house we used to live in leaked. Leaked a lot. Leaked in many rooms. Many things were damaged. I worried every time it rained. And then we moved into the house we're in now and the FIRST thing I had checked out was the roof. Was it going to leak? Answer: No. But I still worried in the back of my head. And 2 years into living here the roof does not leak, BUT the window in my painting studio? Yeah, it leaks. This goes under the heading of be careful what you worry about, it might end up coming true.

The more I go into my studio to paint, the more energy and excitement I have about painting. Funny (and not so funny) how that works.

Wisdom thought today: Don't go to sleep and fall back into old patterns, you might miss an opportunity to see things differently.

When on a spending budget, don't go looking at the new spring shoes from Keen. It's temptation. It won't end well.

Inspiration begets inspiration.

Talking about the things that excite, inspire and remind us why we do what we do are lifelines to further inspiration. Details? Go here, and here.

I have some great wind in my sails right now. I write this to remind myself the next time I hit the doldrums that the wind always picks up again. Always. (see below)

My grandfather used to tell me that the only thing we could count in this world is change. (see above)

February 22, 2011

Ever since I read that Vincent Van Gogh considered orange to be the colour of insanity, I have felt a little uneasy around it. How to use a colour that might be insane? But when paired with pink and purple and lavendar, it's kind of lovely I think. Orange has started to grow on me, and I figure it's made me uneasy long enough, why not be friends.

My design studio is in the midst of being reorganised and it's an utter and total and collosal mess! I am not berating myself about how long it is taking ( a new thing), I am merely plowing through the mess and divesting myself of things that I no longer need or want.

Things are calm and peaceful inside my head when the worry monster is away, and he's been away for a while now. I am hoping that Stan found another place to live and won't be back. Don't get me wrong, I do not wish him on some nice unsuspecting person, hopefully he found a lovely hollow tree, on the side of a hill, and he watches the sun go down into the ocean every evening. That's what I hope for him.

When I am super busy, making lists is very calming.

When I am super busy, staring out a window and watching the trees or the birds is very calming.

When the worry monster is away, there is so much room to think and plan!

I think I have discovered my maximum book reading capacity: 3 non-fiction, 1 business, 1 novel and a book of poetry. That's all I can read simultaneously. Hmmm perhaps that isn't the right word, I don't mean to imply that I am reading them all at the same moment, but in the same sphere of time. 3. 1. 1. 1. Six, yeah, that might be it.

I was thinking about the threads of my life the other day. Some are tangled, some are dangling, some have not yet been used and many many more are woven and lovely and integrated and holding the warp in place, and it got me to thinking about the tapestry of a life. What would your life look like if it was woven into a tapestry, to hang on the wall of your home?

Did I mention that things are so much easier when the worry monster is gone. Yeah. I know I did. It is just such a revelation that apparently I needed to mention it 3 times here.

OK last thought for week 8: snow is being predicted for the Bay Area, get this, AT sea level on Thursday or maybe Friday this week. Think it's really going to happen? I'm going to keep my camera ready.

January 19, 2011

• My painting studio is almost clean. All the stuff is off the floor, most of it has found a home, and what has not found a home needs to live elsewhere. (That's why our garage looks like it "did" - see below)

• I have started to learn to use Wordpress. And it's fun, way more fun than I ever thought it might be, tho if I am being completely honest with myself, I secretly hoped it would be.

• After many years of knitting, I am dipping my toes into the pool of design. It makes me a little scared, and very excited - I have found that this is always a great combo in any new endeavor.

• After almost a year, our cat has decided that she likes my husband. When he gets in bed, she no longer hisses and growls at him. That makes us all very happy.

• After one year and 4 months of living in our house, we cleaned out the garage. When we moved in we basically piled everything in the garage that we either didn't immediately need, or weren't sure what to do with. We unearthed many things we had forgotten about, and we are keeping too many of them, but getting rid of more. Behind all the boxes and rolled up rugs, we found the shelves. Still no room to park a car, but hey, there had to be space for that extra couch we don't know what to do with...

• Three days of sun, after many days of gray, and more than a few days of rainy since before Christmas, makes the whole world a new place.

• Week 3, we're right in the middle of week 3, and I feel as though I am right where I should be.

January 11, 2011

January 06, 2011

Looking back at my words for the past 3 years, this year's definitely diverges from the flock. My first year of the word was 2008 when I chose Balance, in 2009 I was all about Resilience, and last year I was Passion. I will spare you from evaluating last year's word or any of the other years here, but suffice it to say that each word proved to be important and prospicious in its own unique way, and my hope is that this years will be no different.

So a few evenings before the big year-change-over-event, my husband and I were sitting around the fire, talking about what we wanted to see and create in 2011:

What things we wanted to stop dreaming about and make Real (yes with a capital R)

What things had been on our life lists for a while but now no longer seemed relevant and needed to be removed

What top things did we want to accomplish in 2011

What things were feeling absolutely necessary to add/change/delete/remake etc.

And in the midst of our conversation my word came to me: Stride. I resisted it at first, it sounded kind of funny, dorky even. It felt so basic and elementary. Stride wears Keen shoes, and hats to keep the rain off its head. Stride carries sun screen, and a bottle of water and probably never wears mascara. But hey, that's me too. And then it came to me: simple. elementary. basic. = no drama. no pie in the sky. no, oh let's just say it, no bullshit.

I got this clear picture in my head of me walking, I was on a hill and I was walking with a full open stride. Legs fully extended, hips loose, ankles firm, knees happy, and I was moving, I was for lack of a better phrase, Hitting my Stride.

There's nothing I would like more for this year than to hit my stride with my art, with my business, with my painting, with the illustration styles I have been experimenting with, feeling out how my art as jewelery idea will go, and committing myself to using my words more, and writing, a lot. Full stride owning who I am. To take full and total ownership of who I am, what my art is, and not run with it but rather, stride into it.

Oh, and in the vision I had, I was smiling. Really big smiles, whilst striding along on a mountain trail, in the sun, birds are singing, and the grass is swaying in the breeze. Yeah, so here I am striding in to 2011.

January 03, 2011

After just 3 days of stepping away from work, from schedules, from anything that started with "I must..." I am not feeling ready to start it all up again, which then leads me to realise that I don't make enough down time for myself.

I don't have enough time to regenerate and reinvogorate my ideas, my creativity, my business, and this needs to be addressed in a very big way. A friend posted something this weekend that I need to reiterate for myself: Work Smarter, not Harder.

Right this minute, I have absolutely NO idea how to incorporate working smarter into my life, I actually can't even quite fathom what it totally means, but I know I want it badly. I know how to work harder, but working harder oftenalways ends up with me working longer, and packing more stuff into a day, and sitting in front of the computer for hours that are ridiculously long, and leaving out many of the things that make a life fun and enjoyable and, well, a Life. Translation: I might be working dumber.

I think my #5 for December's goals is a start toward the Working Smarter thing, and #6 for sure, and definitely #7, and then I can't help but wonder, with all the things on my to-do list this year that carried over from month to month to month, how much of that is burn out and how much of it is overwhelm, and how much of it is that I have served up far too much for myself.

So here was December. I got none of it done, except My Word, (more on that later), because I had too many deadlines and too much work that had nothing whatsoever to do with this list of things I want to create, and everything to do with making money to make the budget work.

December Goals

website

New Resin jewelery designs

New Colour Story pieces

Finish my announcements to send to other blogs/websites

Create for fun and joy instead of deadlines and money

Let go of the things that are creating too much stress, and re-evaluate their importance/priority